


After

by sittingoverheredreaming



Series: After [1]
Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-24 23:48:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3788848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sittingoverheredreaming/pseuds/sittingoverheredreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the battle that destroys nearly everything, Haruka must deal with what's left and what's not. Bad Ending/No Crystal Tokyo AU. Warnings for death and suicidal thoughts.<br/>Written for the April 2015 HaruMichi Tumblr Circle Same Prompt Fic Party, “The memory of you emerges from the night around me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	After

Haruka did not know how long she’d been walking. The sun had set, but she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t stay in the city in the middle of everything and she’d just go past the edge of the wreckage, but it went on for miles and miles and still hadn’t ended. Maybe she’d walk forever, or until she went straight into the ocean and stopped breathing. As long as she was moving, she wasn’t thinking. So she just had to keep moving.

It had gotten easier since her leg stopped bleeding. Ami had tried to bandage it, but Haruka had run. Let Ami treat the civilians, the people who wanted to survive. There were orphaned children and broken children and broken adults, Ami would have her hands full enough without trying to heal someone as useless as her. Haruka felt dizzy now. The last fight had lasted two nights and a day. When had she last slept? Ate? Did it matter?

She felt dizzier still when she saw an intact house in the distance and recognized it. Her feet had taken to the shore. Of course their beach cottage had survived. It made a terrible poetic sense. Michiru would have been able to say something more eloquent about it. Haruka stopped. She hadn’t meant to think that, but now it was there and it wouldn’t go away. The last stretch of distance melted away.

 

She carried Michiru over the threshold. They hadn’t bothered to change out of their wedding clothes; the train of her dress trailed over the flower bed next to the door. “It doesn’t matter,” Michiru said when Haruka apologized. “I hardly think I’ll have an occasion to wear a wedding dress again.” She smiled the most beautiful smile Haruka had ever seen. The sea breeze blew in and fluttered through the dirty train and Michiru’s hair. Haruka wished she was the artistic one; the moment deserved to be a painting. She fumbled around to find the camera she’d been sure to pack, but by the time she’d gotten it out, the moment was gone.

The picture was beautiful, of course it was, but it wasn’t the moment Haruka would remember forever.

 

The wind that blew in now was violent; crashing against the windows and whistling through the cracks to make the curtains perform a ghostly dance. The sea must have known what had happened. It was angry. _But the wind is my domain_. Haruka poured herself a glass of scotch. The cupboards were still stocked; the place seemed hardly touched. If she drank enough, maybe she’d forget the world was wrecked. Maybe she’d forget that she was angry too.

 

“You’re going to get yourself killed!” Michiru screamed. Her voice filled the empty house, this was why she’d brought Haruka here instead of home. There was no one here for her shouting to wake up.

“We _can_ ’t get killed,” Haruka screamed back, even though it hurt with her bruised diaphragm. “That’s what Crystal Tokyo means, doesn’t it? We can do whatever stupid shit we want, and we’re never going to die, or get old, or anything for a thousand years!”

“You don’t _know_ that!”

“I do though! We’re frozen, Michiru! Other people are age are having kids and getting wrinkles and growing gray hair, but not us.”

Michiru’s eyes went hard. “We have a daughter.”

“Pardon me for wanting one we never tried to kill, one that’s actually, biologically, at least one of ours.”

“Don’t you ever let her hear you say that,” Michiru hissed. 

The heat of anger swept out of Haruka as she realized what she said. “I didn’t… I don’t mean… I love her, Michiru, I just…”

“Just what, Haruka? Just this isn’t good enough for you? Maybe next time you get in a bar fight, don’t call me for your bailout then.”

 

Haruka drank deeply. The sting of alcohol made the sting of tears less noticeable. Their suicide bomb of a daughter had ended it, had been the only one who could. It wasn’t fair that the world had taken even Hotaru from her. It wasn’t fair that part of Haruka wished they’d let Hotaru do it right away. She was a child, frozen as a child. She should have gotten to grow up. They should have been a normal family.

 

“Papa, look, Papa!” Hotaru gestured her paint covered hands at her canvass. Haruka knelt to appreciate it closely. These past few months, the cottage had become Michiru and Hotaru’s studio. Hotaru had no ear for music, just as she had no feel for racing, but painting was her big connection with her aqua-haired mother.

“It’s amazing,” Haruka said, meaning it.

“The apprentice will soon become the master,” Michiru said. She graced down onto the couch with a smile. “You’ll have to start teaching me soon.”

Hotaru pouted. “You’re lying.”

“Would that I were. All the galleries are going to start replacing my work with yours. I’ll feel terribly jealous.”

“Michiru-mama!”

“Don’t you worry, I’ll find a way to live on, I’m sure.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” Hotaru crossed her arms. “You’re so weird.”

“And you’re our daughter, so what does that say about you?” Haruka asked.

“That I take after Setsuna-mama.” Hotaru stomped away to her bedroom. Haruka and Michiru dissolved into giggles as soon as her door shut.

“It’s not such a bad thing,” Haruka said quietly, “that we get so many extra years of this.”

Michiru smiled. “I’m not so sure she’d agree with you right now.” She kissed Haruka lightly and cuddled into her side. “But I do.”

 

Haruka shivered in the drafts of wind. She didn’t trust herself to stand and walk long enough to find a blanket. Eating before drinking would have been smart. Haruka hadn’t wanted to be smart. Haruka didn’t want to be alone. _You’re not alone,_ Ami had tried to say before she’d ran off. _We’ll find Mina and we’ll get through this together._ As if Mina hadn’t died with Usagi. They might find Venus, sure, but never Mina. Haruka might have been able to stay for Mina’s sake. But Venus and Uranus had no love for each other.

She poured another drink instead of moving. Scotch had calories, right? It would either sustain her or kill her. She wasn’t sure which she preferred.

Before she could drink, there was a knock at the door.

 

“You get it,” Haruka mumbled, pressing her face deeper into her pillow. The sun was already bright through the curtains, but she wanted to sleep hours more.

“It’s probably a salesman.” Michiru kissed her neck. “I’d rather stay here.” Her kisses trailed down her back.

“Michiru…” Sleep dropped from Haruka’s mind.

The salesman knocked again, but no one answered.

 

A short figure stepped in. He paused when he noticed Haruka sitting on the kitchen floor. “Oh, I didn’t know anyone was here. It’s the only place I’ve seen that wasn’t…”

“You’re welcome here.” Haruka was surprised at her own enunciation. “There’s food. And drink.” She raised her glass.

The old man looked at her. He took her scotch from her. “We could all use a drink, I suppose.”

There was a gentle chastisement in his tone, but no judgement. Slowly she recognized him. She should have drunk more, then maybe she wouldn’t have.

“I didn’t want to stay in the city,” Grandpa Hino said, sitting down. He drained her glass and poured himself another. “I thought that if I left, I wouldn’t have to know.”

Haruka said nothing. He had to have seen the blaze, that first day. He had to know what it meant, but she couldn’t grudge him for pretending. “I thought if I left, I could forget.”

“You’ll never forget,” he said quietly. “I passed ninety last year, and I haven’t managed to forget.” He put the scotch to his lips, but then set it down. “There are some people we’re just not meant to lose.” They were quiet for a moment, and then he got up and shuffled towards the back of the house. He came back with a blanket. “No sense in getting pneumonia.”

“Maybe not.”

He looked at her, sharp and sad. “You said there was food?”

 

Michiru sat across from Haruka, eyes sparkling in the candlelight. Haruka wasn’t the greatest of cooks, but she felt like she’d done alright for tonight. The lamb was tender, the rice fluffed. It was, at least, much better than last time, when she’d attempted lobster. She hopped the poor thing had survived when she let it go into the ocean.

“What’s the occasion?”

“Do I need an occasion?” Haruka asked, though she had one. “I did some digging. Today is thirty years since we first met.”

“At your track meet?” Michiru flushed. “I can’t believe you figured that out.”

“It wasn’t so hard.” Haruka took her hand and kissed it. “It feels like yesterday.”

 

Grandpa Hino set a bowl of hot noodles in front of her. “Eat.”

Haruka couldn’t find it in herself to disobey. They were plain, but she was hungry enough that they tasted like heaven. Grandpa Hino sat next to her with his own bowl. They ate in silence for a long while.

“I thought this wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said finally. “I thought… No one ever told me, but you all had a future. Chibiusa…”

“It wasn’t set in stone.”

He stared into his bowl. “That’s the first thing you learn, when you learn fortune telling. The future’s inconstant and changeable. But she wasn’t an omen in the fire. She was a girl. She can’t have just…”

“She did.” Haruka didn’t mean to be curt, but she couldn’t be anything else. Not without breaking.

He shook his head. Tears dropped into his bowl. “I thought you were invincible.”

“So did we.”

Grandpa Hino took a huge heave of a breath. “Tell me who’s left.”

“Ami. And… Venus.”

He didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. She wasn’t saying anything he didn’t know. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know how important they were to you.”

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t protect them. Protect her.”

He forced a laugh through his tears. “She’ll come back to haunt you for saying that. Or she would, if she didn’t have someone else who I’m sure needs haunting.” He paused. “And you have your own ghosts to dispel.”

Haruka couldn’t respond for a long while. And when she did, she knew it bordered on cruel, but she needed an answer. “How could you keep going, after your daughter died?”

“I had Rei. She needed me. And I needed her.” His hands shook. He pressed them to his eyes a long moment. “Ami and Mina need you.”

“Mina’s gone.”

“Bring her back.” Grandpa Hino stood to look her in the eye. “I don’t know you that well, but I know them. Ami can’t hold together long by herself. And Mina deserves to have someone fight for her.” His gazed softened. “Not tonight. Maybe not tomorrow. But you need to do it. I need you to do it.”

“Maybe,” was all Haruka could say.

 

The first night had blurred into the second day. Too many monsters, no sign of the source. Rei was gone. They’d nearly lost Usagi then and there, but Mako had picked her up and ran. But now there was nowhere to go, and the lack of sleep was catching up to them.

It took Haruka a long moment to realize when time literally stopped. Setsuna looked at her sadly. “Take Hotaru and run.” To Minako—“Lead everyone somewhere safe, hide awhile, get some sleep.”

“Pluto…”

“It’s too late. Go.”

Haruka lifted Hotaru on to her back, but then she realized who wasn’t taking off with them. “Michiru!”

“Someone has to hold them back longer,” she said evenly, but there were tears in her eyes. “Hotaru won’t make it without you. Usagi won’t make it without the rest. Please, Haruka. Please.”

Haruka stepped towards her, for one last kiss, one last touch, one last anything, but Michiru turned away, towards the frozen oncoming monster horde. “Go!”

Haruka ran, hating every step. She felt the moment, nearly an hour later, when Michiru died. Mina squeezed her hand tight, nodded at her tears, and they kept running.

 

Haruka woke up on the kitchen floor, the corners of her eyes crusty with salt. Grandpa Hino’s snores came from the couch. She couldn’t bring herself to get up, and she nearly reached for the scotch the still sat just inches away.

But maybe, just maybe, Grandpa Hino was right, and another day, she’d be able to do something. Ami and Mina deserved something.


End file.
